Greetings from #rdcHQ!

This week, Christopher Garcia joins the crew at RDC Headquarters. He hit the ground running with some super ideas and immediately got up to speed on FLOSS Manuals and the fundamental building blocks of the eBook: HTML (XHTML) and CSS. We began our exploration of the eBook by breaking out of the content management system (CMS) at FLOSS Manuals so we can strictly focus on design. Scotty downloaded a local copy of the HTML/CSS and images, and uploaded it to our UI Lab so we could all begin experimenting. We broke this file down further into key pages and page elements that recur in the book design. These are listed in the table below:

Chris’s challenge is to write a new CSS file using the current document structure already in use at FLOSS Manuals. This will require some iteration with the individual key page files and the global HTML file* until we achieve the best visual result. Once that is complete, we will test our custom CSS using the FLOSS Manuals REMIX function. It should be interesting and educational – and exciting to see how it all translates when run through FLOSS Manual’s custom PDF generator, OBJAVI.

*Please note that our HTML file is for design and testing purposes only and will be deleted at the end of this exercise. The current version of Reading and Leading with Sugar is available at FLOSS Manuals.

Last week: Hacker Wednesday 7/7 – Cover Art

Last week, we had a strictly visual Hacker Wednesday. Oceana brought in her art tools and dazzled us with her ability – and determined the visual style for the illustrations for the book.

She has chosen a loose natural style that makes the book seem “less nerdy” (in the words of the author) and brings together the color palette of the FLOSS Manuals site and the OLPC XO quite effectively.

Now that the visual direction is determined, she is working with Christopher to establish the look and feel of the entire book – starting with a color palette based on her illustration (at right). Christopher and Oceana are already brainstorming ways to break up the book with illustrations and her palette. Creating graphics for the section headings based on the drawing could be a very effective way to add visual flair to the book and we are going to explore that idea next week.

One thing is certain: we have no shortage of talent or interesting projects at #rdcHQ this year!

Great work, team!

Things have definitely been hopping at #rdcHQ – and not just with eBooks! Earlier this month we announced that we would be adding a second project team – we have decided to postpone that decision for awhile to focus on the two fabulous mentees we have now. We do have a couple of exciting projects on the horizon, so we are keeping our eyes open for talented people interested in working on meaningful projects. It is possible we may add a Fall track to our mentoring program given the great deal of interest in the Rural Design Collective!

Greetings from RDC Headquarters! Yesterday, we had our first remote working session and got accustomed to working with Google Wave, which we chose as our collaborative tool this year. Oceana shared the design concepts she has been working on with author James Simmons, and everyone got a primer on how to use our handy scanner, the HP ScanJet 4670.

Historically, we have used this scanner to digitize a collection of manuals published by Kodak circa 1920 that were produced for camera enthusiasts of the day. “Kodakery” still has several interesting articles that are relevant to amateur photographers, and we will use this collection to examine matters of scanning production and copyright at RDC Headquarters this summer.

The scanner, of course, is not just for digitizing objects – it is a creative tool that can be used in art creation and production, and we will explore this technique next week as we continue to brainstorm cover designs for “Reading and Leading with Sugar.”

Hacker Wednesday 6/23

Last week, the team defined the content and design elements of the book. We are approaching the manual as an exercise in eBook design and production. Although the software at FLOSS Manuals automates a lot of this, every good designer should understand how the process works in the event that they want to have more control over the visual aesthetic. Oceana broke down the book’s design into five key visual elements: cover page, table of contents, section page, text page (with and without illustrations), and acknowledgments - and created thumbnail sketches based on those elements. She then created mockups of one interior page and the cover in Inkscape and shared them with the project team on Google Wave. We will post these mockups on the website once James and Oceana determine that they are complete.

The next step in this exercise is to break down the individual pages further to define the CSS elements that need to be styled, and then create mock-ups in code. Next week, we will determine who will begin to bring our layouts to life with the addition of fresh faces at RDC Headquarters.

Stay tuned!

The Rural Design Collective 2010 Summer Mentoring Program will be adding another project team on July 7th. We have yet to determine if this team will support the eBooks crew or work on an independent project. We are pretty excited at this latest development at RDC Headquarters, and are looking forward to welcoming our new team members!

Nate Malamud (Junior member of the RDC) created a cover for “Reading and Leading with Sugar” at RDC Headquarters last week (The snake was Extra Credit).